HOW THIS IMPACTS ONYX RESELLERS ONYX will continue to provide our reseller partners with complimentary call center and support.

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1 December 2008 Issue What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> What s New: INTRODUCING ONYX SUPPORT Keep printing. Stay profitable. We understand the importance of keeping our customers printing businesses up and running. With that in mind, we have developed a line of Service Products under the ONYX Support brand to ensure that the level of support that ONYX customers receive is well matched to their business needs and budget. The ONYX Support product offering includes options from , a new Web Portal with 24/7 access, a call center staffed with a highly experienced Support Crew to a new software maintenance program. The chart below outlines the ONYX Support line of service offerings. HOW THIS IMPACTS ONYX RESELLERS ONYX will continue to provide our reseller partners with complimentary call center and support. You have the option to offer these additional ONYX Support products to your customer base. Customers who contact the ONYX Support center on or after January 5, 2009 will automatically activate their Grace Period. The ONYX Support products are available for purchase through their ONYX reseller or by calling ONYX Inside Sales at (800) starting January 5, ONYX Support Overview Frequently Asked Questions For more information visit or call (800)

2 What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> Hooked On ONYX ONYX Customers Share Their Stories of Success Complott Papier Union GmbH is one of the leading system houses for large format printing systems in Germany. It has offices in Mettmann, Markt Schwaben near Munich, Hamburg and Reinbek. Alongside LFP printers from HP, Canon, Epson, Mimaki, Roland, Seiko, Gerber and other manufacturers of the LFP specialist also offer software, inks and an unbeatable selection of print media for the most varied of applications. Complott Papier Union GmbH serves its customers with an excellently trained consulting team, manufacturer-trained service technicians and the LFP Academy, a dedicated training department. Today we are interviewing Dirk Gehrbrandt, who, with 8 years experience in the external sales force of Complott, is able to give a comprehensive sharp-end report on the printing and advertising market. Specifically, we are talking about the striking features of the ONYX RIP solutions and the highly positive feedback from customers on the products of the Salt Lake City based software producer. With nearly two decades of market experience, more than 100,000 installations and cooperation with all leading printer manufacturers, ONYX is the market leader in terms of RIP software. Dirk Gehrbrandt tells us that the selling skills needed to convince customers of the ONYX range of solutions are marginal. Facts such as the easy handling, the highly optimized workflow, the generation of special colors, or the extraordinary quality are self-evident in exactly the same way as the high productivity, reduced ink costs due to excellent color management, and special features such as print and cut or the generation of ICC profiles. Even users who did not wish to discontinue using their already proven software application ultimately changed to the market leader after a peek behind the scenes of the various ONYX products. Especially since the software can be used with all digital print media and applications.

3 Hooked On ONYX ONYX Customers Share Their Stories of Success What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> It is not without reason that the CP Texjet 1800/2500 textile printer, which can only be obtained from Complott, is distributed exclusively in a bundle with the ONYX RIP. The CP Texjet is a textile printer, which processes printing and color fixing in just one single operation and thus saves time as well as production costs while facilitating brilliant color printing on a wide range of uncoated and therefore inexpensive textiles. It is precisely here that the creation of individual ICC profiles is enormously helpful in ensuring optimum color space and depth. Whether you are new, converting, or an advanced user in the field of large format printing, the use of ONYX is made easy for every customer because of the Complott LFP Academy. So far, they are the only training center in Germany dedicated to large format printing. The Academy turns beginners into experts and experts into professionals, whether it is dealing with prepress software such as QuarkXPress, products from Adobe such as InDesign and Photoshop, or just specifically the ONYX solutions. Dirk Gehrbrandt says, RIP Center 7.2 is the basic product from the ONYX series for controlling a large format printer. The share of PosterShop 7.2 is quoted as being approximately 80% of the entire ONYX RIP sales figures. This well-developed package offers all the features needed by professional operators of 1 to 2 printing machines. Production House 7.2 is aimed at organizations with more extensive machine facilities, the likeable external sales agent tells us. This premium package offers the complete RIP-family range. Conclusion: ONYX solutions are convincing in all aspects of professional digital printing.

4 Product Feature Focus: HEARD IN THE PRINT SHOP What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> This past spring, product engineers from ONYX visited print shops around the world to see what tools we could add to our RIP software to improve shop efficiency. We were surprised to discover that the general answer was none. The greatest bottleneck in production shops today is not at the RIP, but in the job preparation stage prior to production. For most shops, job preparation takes too much time; causing inefficiencies in production and finishing that hurt the bottom line. In today s market, reducing production costs and improving efficiency has become an important goal in most print shops. Over the course of several weeks we saw prepress operators struggling with multiple design programs to fix file problems and correct colors; others struggled with preparing complex tile layouts and difficult installations. Some prep departments spent 20-minutes or more hand-drawing cut-contour paths around image objects getting them ready for printing and cutting. Other shops lacked finishing tools in job prep, requiring people to be on the floor marking grommet placement on banners with a tape measure. The problem was that each of the print shops were using Adobe Illustrator along with a collection of other design applications to do their large-format job preparation. While they are powerful design programs, these applications simply don t have the large-format job preparation tools and PDF editing capabilities that print shops need for job preparation such as file correction, tiling, finishing, and color correction. Print jobs need to flow efficiently from job prep through production and on to finishing. Problems in job prep not only waste time, but if issues are not caught, jobs reach production and are printed incorrectly, wasting ink and media. In order to help shops improve their workflow and reduce costly print errors, ONYX has created a new tool for large-format job preparation, PrepEdge Pro. PrepEdge Pro is RIP independent, runs on a Mac or a PC, and includes all of the tools a shop needs for efficient job preparation from file prep, color correction, tiling and cutting, to finishing. The first print shops using ONYX PrepEdge Pro dramatically reduced their job preparation time and the number of problems that could lead to costly mistakes and missed deadlines. PrepEdge Pro will be available by mid-january. Look for more information in a Special Edition of Thrive early next month.

5 What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> Tech Tips Helpful Tips From the Experts How to Print in MAC OS 10.5 with ONYX If you have problems printing from MAC OS 10.5, click here for the online whitepaper on Printing From a Mac. Or, try the following alternate solution. Prerequisites: 1. Your Windows PC with the printer on it needs to have an Admin account with a single word, no spaces. (preferred unix) 2. Your printer share name is a single word (e.g. Canon ip4300 should be just ip4300). Follow these steps: 1. Open your system preferences > Open Print & Fax. 2. Click + to add a printer. 3. Right-click on the Toolbar at the top and select Customize Toolbar. 4. Drag the Advanced icon to the toolbar & select Done. 5. Click the Advanced icon. 6. Select Windows from the Type: drop down menu. 7. In the URL text box type the location of your windows printer in the format below. Use the format depending on whether your Windows PC sharing the Printer has a password or not: smb://username:password@ipaddress/printersharename <- Print Server does have a password. smb://username@ipaddress/printersharename <- Print Server does NOT have a password (e.g. smb://barney@ /ip4300) 8. Enter a Name and Location. 9. Now select the appropriate driver and then click Add. 10. Try printing something and then it will ask for a user name and password of your windows server. Type a user name, then the password; add this to your keychain and click OK. Now you are printing in OSX 10.5.

6 Max-imize Your Color Tips from our Color Scientist Max Derhak What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> Color Device Geometries Note: This article was put together from contributions of the whole Output Quality team Color measurement devices can measure colors in different ways using different angles for illumination and viewing to measure a given sample. (Note: In this case, the term viewing refers to the process of sensing). The CIE has standardized several different ways of measuring colors. They are classified as geometries which can be broadly separated into two categories, listed below.

7 What s New>> Hooked on ONYX>> Product Feature>> Tech Tip>> Max-imize>> Max-imize Your Color Tips from our Color Scientist Max Derhak Bidirectional Geometries These devices use directional illumination and viewing, thus totally avoiding the specular component. The 0/45 degree geometry uses 0 degree illumination and 45 degree circumferential viewing. The 45/0 degree geometry uses 45 degree circumferential illumination and 0 degree viewing. These devices mainly measure the diffuse component of the total reflectance. These geometries do not however totally exclude the specular component because some textured glossy samples can still have a specular component different from the regular angle of reflection. Integrating Sphere Based Geometries These devices use an integrating sphere which is coated with a diffuse white on the inside to diffusely illuminate or view a sample. In case of diffuse illumination the geometry is called d/8, 8 degree being the angle of viewing. Alternately, the sample can be diffusely viewed making the geometry 8/d. The total reflectance of the sample consists of the diffuse component and the specular component (generally because of gloss or texture). An ideal diffuse sample (completely matte) will only have diffuse reflection. Both these geometries can either include or exclude the specular component of the total reflectance. The specular excluded mode has gloss trap to absorb the specular reflected light. These traps have size limitations and hence depending on the type of sample, they totally exclude the gloss (for highly glossy samples) or only partially exclude the gloss (for semi-glossy or textured samples, where the gloss is spread over an area larger than the trap size). Choosing the Right Geometry Different standard geometries will give different measurements for the same given sample unless the sample is completely diffuse. The obvious question would be, Which geometry should I use to measure samples? While this is a valid question, the more appropriate question would be, Which geometry is suitable for the application of image color management? Let s look at how these geometries affect measurements of different samples. A spherical geometry is most suitable for applications where the aim is to measure the colorant and not the appearance. An example of this is for quality control situations in a manufacturing process where the color of a fabric or a material needs to be consistent from day to day. In this case there is a comparison of similar surface texture for each measurement (the measured appearance is always the same).

8 Max-imize Your Color Tips from our Color Scientist Max Derhak In testing, performed at ONYX we found that measurements of glossy surfaces using a spherical geometry device (with or without including the specular component) resulted in the color measurements generally being lighter than measurements using a bidirectional device. For matte surfaces the measurements for both geometries is generally much closer. When viewing an image sample, observers generally avoid the specular reflection. This is equivalent to using the bidirectional geometry device. Thus in applications where the evaluation is based on viewing the diffuse portion of the total reflectance (such as when using ICC based color management), bidirectional geometries are more suitable. Recommended Geometry for Profiling with Media Manager Based on the discussion above, it is recommended to use a bidirectional geometry device. For samples with surface texture like canvas or textile, using a spherical geometry with specular excluded may result in getting more consistent single measurement results. However, even with the specular component excluded, the measurements tend to be lighter and the resulting ICC profiles will produce darker output. If this is desired then a spherical geometry might be appropriate. Using a bidirectional device with a rough, uneven, or course surface can result in less consistent measurement results from reading to reading. Because of this, an excellent recommendation would be to read swatches multiple times and then take an average of these measurements. In some cases it might also be a good idea to print the swatch multiple times (to get slightly different surface for each patch) and reading these swatches multiple times; taking an average of these measurements. This will better ensure the average measurements are independent of any texture effects.